About Steve Salvi
I'm Steve Salvi, and welcome to my website.
For over 30 years I've been a passionate advocate of the guitar, it's players and it's music.
There is nothing I love more than to be around guitars and guitar players. I feel
privileged to be where I am today and am looking forward to meeting you
and many more players in the years to come.
I started playing music at an early age, and took up the guitar at age 12. I loved
the music of Leo Kottke and Michael Hedges as well as many others, and
ended up with a plethora of open tunings and finger style techniques that
I still use today.
At 14 I discovered Hendrix, Zeppelin, Van Halen, John McLaughlin, Howlin
Wolf, Mike Stern, and Joe Pass and Al Di Meola amongst many others.
Studying all of these guys passionately for years has, I believe, given me a broad
horizon by which to see the instruments I now find myself building.
I attended my first instrument building class at the age of 17, with the late and
great Peter Kempster here in South Australia, and spent years dabbling
with building and repairs whilst playing in bands and doing solo performances
here in Adelaide.
In 1992 I went to London and worked in Denmark Street, London at a premier acoustic
dealership, doing sales and repairs and within 4 months was managing the
whole shop. While there, I got to play, and work on, literally hundreds
of premium brand guitars, like Martin, Lowden, Santa Cruz and Taylor.
It wasn't just the guitars I found compelling whilst in London. The
players I met, jammed, hung out, with and learned from, whether famous,
amateur or introspective, was a life altering experience. All of this
experience has helped me understand what I, and others, need out of a
guitar.
I came back to Adelaide in 1997 and started working in a very large specialist guitar
dealership doing sales and repairs.
In 2000 I was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship for guitar building and went
to the US for a few months where I attended a contemporary guitar building
course with Charles Fox, guitar builder and Jig master extraordinaire,
and then traversed the countryside seeking out fellow builders and major
factories alike, to exchange ideas and learn new techniques to add to
my guitar building expertise before coming home and starting my own shop.
Right now I'm enjoying building my guitars and playing regularly. I'm proud to say that I can call
some of South Australia's Premier builders and players my Mentors and
close friends. I learn from them everyday, and I have learnt one thing
for sure, if you don't know what a truly great guitar is, or sounds
like, then you can't make one. The dream must be dreamt before it
can become a reality.
My hope is to live a long and fruitful life improving my guitars and making new friends.
Drop me a line if you like, I try to answer as many emails as I can.
Dream Peace.
Steve Salvi.
Guitar Fix c/o Salvi's Fine Guitars
54 George Street
Thebarton
SA 5031
+61 8 8443 8272
sales@salviguitars.com.au